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Infinite Diversity...
...is harder than it looks. One rule that was stipulated for this campaign was that every race in the game was present just about anywhere, to a greater and lesser degree by location. In this section, I aim to detail the origins of each race on Ici'Taria, as well as any ways they differ from their descriptions in the published material, both mechanically and in terms of flavour. Humans Humans in Ici'Taria are much like humans in most fantasy settings - adaptable, resourceful and found most anywhere, especially if there's coin to be made. In Lirakaster, the two provinces that are actually ruled by humans exclusively are the Dynas Tsutendraum, whose Royal Family are mostly, but not exclusively, human, and the Grand Duchy of Ytomn, an autocratic nation ruled by it's tyrant ruler, Lord Protector Eraum Malacast. Elves The elves of Ici'Taria are divided up by the three primary subraces, wood elves, high elves and dark elves. The high elves are mostly concentrated in Firandrir, the continent that they claim their native descent from. They form a loose coaliton of city-states that are known to outsiders as the Sunlance Alliance. There are no defined borders to the Alliance, as the cities that it is composed of are scattered throughout the entire continent. The majority are built on sites containing great First Ones technology, and those newer cities that aren't are built using scavenged arcanotech. Noone outside the Alliance knows how they are able to maintain their bonds of trade and defence across such a large area, especially as noone can recall seeing a trading caravan or military force entering or leaving any Alliance city in living memory. The wood elves are scattered across the globe, and only tend to form large communities within the forests they are named for. On Lirakaster, the largest collective of wood elves can be found in the Forgotten Wilds, where they serve as its wardens and protectors. Those wood-elves that are steeped in magic as part of their daily lives (druids, rangers, clerics etc.) are easily differentiated from those that aren't by the physical changes this brings about. Wood elf magic users often develop a physical animalistic feature, such as deer antlers, cat ears and wolf tails, as well as a behavioural trait that loosely corresponds to these, as a direct result of the nature magic that is innate to them. The dark elves are incredibly rare, and most people can go their entire lives without seeing a single member of their kind. Unlike the drow of other settings, the dark elves of Ici'Taria, who know no other name, have no qualms with either sunlight or the surface world, and those that do exist can offer no better explanation for their provenance than anyone else. They are universally lost orphans, an occurrence so rare that some people believe that they appear as a prophetic pattern, that some arcane force dictates their appearance. Noone knows any better, so it is the fate of a dark elf to wander the world in total ignorance of their provenance, unsure of where or who they came from. Some dark elves live out the rest of their lives in this state, endlessly wandering, never stopping anywhere for long. Some become passionate explorers or scholars, determined to find the origin of their species. Others simply accept their past as unknowable and devote themselves to forging a new life for themselves in their inevitably adopted homeland, wherever that may be. Dwarves The dwarves of Ici'Taria are a little like most dwarves, in the sense that they live underground in vast halls hewn from the roots of mountains or shaped from vast subterranean caverns, are particularly adept at mining for any sort of mineral and predominate the fields of study involving any First Ones era technology. What is different is how their society is formed; in most settings, dwarves from mighty clans that exist in a begrudging, if mostly amicable alliance. The dwarves of Ici'Taria are not like this. They consider all dwarfkind to be part of a single extended family, and although individual Great Halls exist, they do so in order to maintain the fabric of their society, by providing vast stores of wealth and political influence that serves at the behest of all dwarves. The storied dwarven hatred of goblinkind is also absent, and in fact, dwarves and goblins exist in a tightly bound friendship that has lasted for millenia. Noone knows how this came to be, but dwarves and goblins are considered, if not kin, then certainly close friends. Every Great Hall has a ruling council, with a dwarf hallmaster, hobgoblin general and goblin technomancer at it's head. All Great Halls form the Forge Synod, who discuss matters of state and enact laws for all Great Halls. The Synod also elects the High King or Queen from amongst it's members when the current High King or Queen dies. By ancient accord, only dwarves ever stand for the throne. Goblins have never cared for high politics, and only sit on their respective councils as their particular aptitude for arcanotech is an essential resource for the Halls. Hobgoblins, while certainly canny enough to rule the Synod, abstain from such elections as an archaic courtesy to their dwarven allies, but this courtesy is usually repaid by the High King appointing a hobgoblin as the Synod's Warmaster, granting him command of the united armies of the dwarves in times of great peril. Halflings Dragonborn Gnomes Tieflings Tieflings in most settings are typically portrayed as being almost outcasts, born from unsavoury lineages and deemed by the vast majority as being unscrupulous, untrustworthy and downright sinister. In Ici'Taria, tieflings are treated as almost the complete opposite, especially in Lirakaster and the Tulemar Archipelago. The Tuvali Shogunate is a predominantly tiefling society, although there are almost equal numbers of tabaxi and dragonborn there. The first Shogai Queen was a tiefling warrior, and most of the Zephyr Princes are tieflings to this day. Half-Orcs Half-Elves Tabaxi Firbolgs Aasimar Goliaths Kenku